Recommendations for this damascus blade and help with "Pithy" Elk antler...

Kentucky

Kentucky

Joined
Dec 13, 2008
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First off this is not the final profile of this blade :D The clip is gonna be drawn farther back and that roach belly is gonna be straightened out...
Now, this is a 200+ layer 1084/15n20 damascus blade that we made right after Lisa bought that 50 pounder..Been setting on the bench ever since :o Id like to use Elk antler but that piece in the picture is very pithy, not very solid in the core..Is there anyway around this? Ive heard of boiling etc but I dont want to waste time if its not gonna work. Also thinking about curly maple..The guard is gonna be a semi-S curve forged from wrought iron..The spacer and butt cap will be wrought iron as well..
Ive also thought about desert ironwood but im afraid it wont go vry well with the wrought iron fittings..
Any help with the elk antler or thoughts otherwie would be appreciated..
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Ream it, fill with epoxy and saturate whatever is left near the bark with thin cyanoacrylate? How thin is the bark at the guard end? Do you have enough to play with in shaping it? I hear it is possible to bed the tang in the epoxy cast in a fashion not that unlike bedding a gun barrel in its stock. I guess you tape the tang up and lube it with some sort of separating agency so it can be withdrawn from the cured epoxy afterwards.

The curly maple looks sweet, but I wonder if the vertical banding would seem at odds at all with the horizontal banding of the blade?
 
Like Phil said you can fill with epoxy or if you have a dowel thats close in size once the antler pith is cleaned out, you can epoxy that into place. Advantage of the dowel is that you can cut it in half and groove a slot for the tang before inserting it into the antler. Think there was an article in Blade recently about this with pics.......

Larry
 
Thanks, yes Ive wondered the same thing..Its a real nice grade maple that when finsihed with aqua fortis is very bold..Very deep chatoyance..What you see there is just "as sawed"....With that maple being so bold it may look off with this particular damascus...
Shame, if i would have though Id have made sure it was ladder pattern..That would have matched the maple nicely..
Phil Dwyer said:
The curly maple looks sweet, but I wonder if the vertical banding would seem at odds at all with the horizontal banding of the blade?
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Id say this particular piece of elk is about 50/50..I may be better off looking for a more solid piece...I also have a piece of sandbar stag roll but Im not sure its big enough to look right?
 
Shaughnessy said:
Like Phil said you can fill with epoxy or if you have a dowel thats close in size once the antler pith is cleaned out, you can epoxy that into place. Advantage of the dowel is that you can cut it in half and groove a slot for the tang before inserting it into the antler. Think there was an article in Blade recently about this with pics.......

Larry
Click to expand...

July of this year.......
 
Is there someplace online to see this process shown in Blade Magazine? Thanks!
 
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